Chapter 17- Revelation of the Saints

Tian could never reach whatever was stopping his fingers from healing. Those gates were simply beyond him, in every possible sense. The creations of a higher being.

But no matter how great that being was, the Dao was greater still.

Tian saw himself fold inward, as though “he” were leaping in that strange direction, carried on the breath of the Dao towards those gates. The fall wasn’t steady- it started from near stillness then with a massive jolt, he launched forward. Then came a second jolt forward, moving him even faster. Then a third jolt, then a fourth, then a fifth, each followed by brutal acceleration. Faster and faster, nine times. The acceleration was matched with with a feeling of greater density, a feeling that, while he might not be getting bigger, there was increasingly more of him.

The gates grew too. As he got closer, he began to appreciate the scale of what he was challenging. They were gates, yes, but machines as well. He could feel life itself flowing away from him, down the chains and out into the void beyond. Chains came in, life flowed out. It was easy enough to understand, as was the consequence of shattering those other gates.

Was this why his growth had been so stunted? Why, despite everything, his carnal desires were so muted? It was all being drained away. No life, no next generation, and the brief span of existence was to be defined by suffering and weakness. What a hateful god.

The center of the gate was a knot of obsidian and steel, moving as though it was alive, or as though it were boiling, and things from within were emerging and sinking constantly. Looked at another way, and it was a grand array, constantly adjusting itself for maximum efficiency. Looked at yet another way, and it embodied some unspeakable, obscene principle.

Beyond his understanding. It was all beyond his understanding, all the arrangement of some being who interacted with the universe in ways he could not perceive with his limited senses. And he was crashing directly into it. What could he do but condense his body into as tight a ball as he could manage, and be carried by the flow.

Tian couldn’t possibly describe the moment of impact. He hit something, hard, hard enough to shatter it. If it existed at all. Which it didn’t, except it did, and it was cold and hot and the smell of rotting leaves and sulfur, and it tasted like the screams echoing through the Redstone Wasteland.

For a moment, he remembered being trapped in a bed. Everything hurt. He couldn’t think. Could barely breathe. He felt his body start to spasm. It was agonizing, and he couldn’t even scream properly. And then the moment passed.

And something shattered.

And he was suddenly free from pain, for a blessed moment.

The pain returned tenfold, trying to shatter his mind. The last gate was digging in even harder, ripping into him, tearing away his will and his vitality and there was simply no way he could even resist it, let alone defeat it. The last fourteen years had been a dream, a blessed dream, but like all dreams, it ended. This was the end. There was never any hope of winning. Never any chance the mad god could be killed.

Some eddy, some twist in the breath of the dao spun him around, sending him back the way he came. So much for the heavenly realm. He could only hope he had enough life left to see Liren ascend.

His eyes cracked open, then shot wide. He wasn’t going back the way he came. He was accelerating again, even faster this time, charging the last gate from behind.

From behind, the gate seemed utterly organic. Organic what, or even why, he couldn’t say. He had seen bellies torn open on the battlefield and in hospitals. Organs had a way of shivering and convulsing in the cold air. It seemed something like that. Or nothing like that. Words broke down, thoughts, emotions, all broke down. The sheer enormity of what the gate represented, the will it manifested, could not be reduced to language or mortal thought.

The second gate didn’t hold up any better than the first. So much accumulated fortune, such sturdy foundations, could not be denied. Not when the force of the dao itself was propelling him along.

Tian didn’t understand anything that was happening, but he perfectly understood the moment his shackles were broken. He floated in a vast emptiness, untethered to lightness or darkness, hot or cold, alive or dead. He simply was, and all of existence was with him. Thus, he was not, for how could he separate himself from everything? Where was there space for even the idea of division?

And from that void, a single golden seed was born. There was something of the moon about it, but more of lotuses, and the whiff of incense. Above all, it was Tian. A single piece of the infinite, illuminated by a moment of impossible, transcendent clarity. A revelation.

Tian’s mind returned to his body just in time to see Liren haloed in golden light, the sun descended into the mortal world, carrying all good things with it. Joy hammered at him, glory and power and life hammered on him, a fierce cry of outrage at the evils of the world hammered on him and she was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Strong and wild and free and so, so full of fire.

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His eye was pulled upwards. The sky was also full of fire. Black clouds turned magenta in places as coiling demonic dragons circled within them. Temple guardian deities clutching divine weapons glared down at them, long tongues flapping between protruding fangs as the screams of the eternally damned were carried on the wind.

“When Burning Heaven broke through, there was cheering. When Brother Fu broke through, everyone came out and guarded him.” Tian felt like his eyes were spinning in their sockets. The sheer sensory overload made him twitch and his muscles clench, while the aftermath of the revelation rang his brain like a bell, drowning out all competing thoughts.

One of the lightning dragons had enough of waiting. It dove towards the two of them. Tian only registered the movement when it smashed against a glowing turtle shell made of starlight.

“I had wondered what the ward was. It’s a turtle. I seem to have fate with aquatic animals.” Tian wondered who spoke for a moment, before realizing it was him.